Their Faith Was Misplaced

Mentally unbalanced attackers often release their rage upon groups of helpless victims such as schoolchildren, shoppers, or co-workers. Although half-mad with rage, these predators have enough wit to carry out their attacks within environments where they are unlikely to meet significant opposition in time to prevent them from carrying out their atrocities.

Helpless Victims, Herded Together in Age-Matched Groups, Left Unprotected

The recent mass killing in a Connecticut school reminds us of the innate helplessness of small children, in the face of a deadly threat. Small children themselves can not be expected to defend themselves against guns, knives, clubs, or other deadly weapons including strong adult hands and feet. These children and their parents assume that the little ones will be safe behind the walls of government schools -- so generously supported by US taxpayers.

But their faith is sadly misplaced. Most schools are so called "gun free zones," which means that any miscreant who can devise a way to carry loaded guns onto school properties is guaranteed to have several minutes of carefree trigger time, unmolested by meaningful opposition -- at least until the police arrive.

But some school districts have decided to toughen up, and make it more difficult for mentally deranged killers to have their bloody way with the children -- whether they are using guns, knives, swords, hammers, clubs, or baseball bats.

In Ohio, the Buckeye Firearms Foundation is swamped with 20 times more applications — from teachers and administrators to custodians and bus drivers -- than they have space for in a three-day tactical defense course to be offered this this spring.

Jim Irvine, president of the Ohio foundation, said Thursday that the $1,000 per person Armed Teacher Training Program would be free for the 24 people selected from more than 400 applicants. "What better use for an educational foundation than to help educators protect our children," he said.

...In Salt Lake City, Utah, shortly before their latest class was set to start, Clark Aposhian, chairman of the sponsoring Utah Shooting Sports Council, said they were expecting at least 200 people to attend.

They have trained about a dozen teachers a year. Utah has allowed teachers to carry concealed weapons on K-12 campuses for 12 years now and, said Aposhian, "We have never had any accidental or intentional shootings." He serves on the state board where any violation of concealed weapon laws would be reported.

"Teachers are professionals. They will take appropriate measures to maintain a gun discreetly and safely," said Aposhian, a tactical firearm instructor. _USAToday

There is a great deal of opposition to the idea of allowing teachers to have access to loaded weapons on school grounds. But such opposition is likely to be pushed back by the need to protect children with more than just high sounding words and hypocritical catch phrases.

Several armed criminal attacks are aborted by bystanders carrying concealed weapons every year. One of the most famous massacres in US history -- the Luby's massacre in Texas 20 years ago before concealed carry was allowed -- would have been curtailed with much less loss of life, if a young chiropractor eating in the cafeteria at the time had been allowed to carry her handgun.

A recent shooting at a mall in Clackamas County outside Portland, Oregon, was cut short when a bystander with a gun appeared to have frightened the shooter into killing himself.

Other would-be shooting sprees have been cut short by armed bystanders, before they reached the threshold of murder and mayhem in which the skankstream press appears to revel so gleefully. Clearly more such incidents would be aborted by armed bystanders if not for the fact that they typically take place in areas where it is illegal to carry firearms.

Concealed Campus.org is dedicated to promoting legal concealed carry on campus.

Survival is not politically correct. Instead, what is politically correct is for presidents, senators, celebrities, academics, and journalists to use tragic deaths to trumpet their pet causes -- which would merely leave citizens even more helpless against deranged predators than they are at present.